New York, February 6, 2026, 17:03 (EST) — After-hours trading.
Bitcoin bounced back Friday, jumping 11% to $70,304 after briefly sliding as low as $60,300 earlier in the session.
Late-week risk appetite steadied, giving U.S. stocks a strong push higher—chipmakers were out front. The Dow closed above 50,000 for the first time ever. S&P 500 gained close to 2%. The Nasdaq climbed over 2% as well, a move that took some heat off the speculative end of the market. 1
But the action felt less like a fresh break and more like markets catching their breath. Shaun Osborne, Scotiabank’s chief currency strategist, described it as “a day of consolidation” for risk assets. Gold popped roughly 4%, silver surged over 8%—both snapping back after wild swings. In crypto options, traders zeroed in on puts—bets on a drop—with Derive.xyz flagging concentrated interest at $60,000 to $50,000 strikes for Feb. 27 contracts. 2
Ether climbed too, rising around 11% to $2,052 after dipping to nearly $1,757 earlier in the session.
Still, the volatility hasn’t let up, and crypto prices are stuck well below their highs from early October. On Thursday, bitcoin tumbled alongside a wider selloff, with CoinGlass data putting bitcoin liquidations around $1 billion in just 24 hours. Some market watchers pointed to concerns that President Donald Trump’s choice for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, might tighten policy by reducing the Fed’s balance sheet, pulling out liquidity. “The market fears a hawk with him,” said Julius Baer’s Manuel Villegas Franceschi. Mohit Kumar at Jefferies flagged a potential “vicious cycle” if plunging prices force miners and other leveraged holders to sell even more. 3
Strategy, the corporate bitcoin proxy run by Michael Saylor, reported a steeper loss for the quarter and disclosed it held 713,502 bitcoins as of Feb. 1, following a rocky period for digital assets. Saylor told investors that “the actions by big finance” and regulators remain “the fundamentals,” doubling down on his belief that long-term institutional adoption will outweigh swings in price. 4
The downturn hasn’t spared the smaller “digital asset treasury” outfits either—those that load up on crypto as part of their core business. Shares in the UK’s Smarter Web Company tumbled almost 18% Thursday, Reuters said, with other publicly traded bitcoin holders like Nakamoto Inc and Japan’s Metaplanet taking hits too, as the wave of selling spilled over from tokens to company stocks. 5
Focus shifts to bitcoin’s ability to hold the $70,000 line, with attention on how traders position themselves ahead of the Feb. 27 contract cycle—a pivotal moment for bitcoin derivatives. 6
